


The Night Was All You Had

by 2000pancakes



Category: Star Wars
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Force Bond, Reylo - Freeform, Song Lyrics, lyric prompts, oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-27 20:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13255995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2000pancakes/pseuds/2000pancakes
Summary: Bastille Lyrics + Reylo(I put my Bastille playlist on shuffle and choose lyrics from the first song that comes up to write about)





	1. Hold Me in this Wild, Wild World

All around her: the sick, the broken and the beaten. There was that metallic, horrible smell of dried blood in the air as Rey walked past the wounded survivors. She had a few burns, bruises and cuts of her own from the last battle. The medics were hard at work, some of them needing to ignore their own injuries in order to help others. Rey wished that she could be of some use to them, but she was hopeless at medical work. She watched as Rose bandaged a whimpering pilot and as Poe sat next to Finn, his arm around his shoulder, both of them trying to forget the horrors of the day.

So this is war, Rey thought. An endless cycle of battles lost, of changing bases, healing the survivors, mourning the lost, recruiting more young souls to be thrown into a deadly fight and in the end having to witness the pain and loss over and over and over again. And still they looked to her. 

They looked to Rey.

She seemed to be a beacon of hope for them, a taste of a better future. Whether she was piloting a fighter or with a blaster on the battlefield people were always filled with heart in her presense.

Rey wished that they weren’t. She often had people, normally young people, new recruits come up to her and say “I’m here because of you,” “you’re going to be our last hope, I know it,” “you’re the fire of the Resistance,” “you’re going to revive the Jedi and bring order again,” and, almost the most hurtful, “you’re my hero.”

She wasn’t a hero. She refused to think of herself as such. She was just a girl trying to do some good in a chaotic world consumed by war. In her heart she felt alone, afraid. The real heros were Leia Organa, Poe Dameron, Rose Tico, Finn and everyone else who was putting their heart and soul into the resistance, into the light...

She did not want to admit to anyone that deep down she could feel the low push of the Dark Side deep within her soul. 

Try as she might, it would not leave her. It was embedded in her bones, in her being. As if it had been there all along, waiting for an awakening...

She left the main area of the base into the barracks, making her way through the bunks into her room.

She had felt selfish when she had requested her own private room on just about every base, especially when everyone else had to share. But she didn’t want to risk anyone finding out about her and Kylo. Not that there was anything to find out... they hardly spoke. But she doubted that the Resistance would be too happy about their posterchild’s ability to have direct communication with the enemy.

Rey collapsed onto her bunk, exhausted. She reached out to the bedside table and grabbed a small bottle of disinfectant. Closing her eyes, she let a few dropplets drip onto the gnash on her arm. She winced, letting the pain fade before setting the bottle back down and starting to dress the wound.

It was when she was alone when the voices would come at their loudest. The echoes of battles: the cries and screams of the dying and the sometimes already dead. Months of war, months of discord and running and fear had changed her. 

The sleepless nights had become more and more frequent. Tossing and turning... the recurring nightmares... the uneasiness that came with the realization that the only way to calm the swirling storms in her head was... 

“Ben.”

She sat up and there he was, standing a few steps away from her.

“Rey.”

She turned away from him, tucking in the loose end of the bandage and lying down on her bed, “I’d rather not do this now.”

”I heard about today.”

She remained silent. Yeah, she was pretty sure that the entire galaxy heard about today.

”I’m sorry, Rey.”

”No you’re not,” she said, “this is what you want. You want to continue to beat the Resistance, to crush us. You think if you carry on like this we’ll die out but we won’t, Ben. I promise you, we won’t.”

”I am sorry.”

The words were so soft, gentle. Rey tried to hide from the sincerity behind them... but of course she couldn’t. She could hear his thoughts clearly. Being linked he had seen the horrors that she had, too often had he felt the same fear, pain and survivors guilt that she had. Deep down, she knew that he had stopped ordering attacks, leaving them to Hux. He had grown more brooding, silent around the First Order captains. The warhad ended up changing him as much as it was changing her.

”It hurts.”

”I know.”

”No,” Rey sat up again, looking him the eye, “no, you don’t. You only catch the tail ends of it. The splurts of emotion. My fear, my worries. You don’t know these people. You don’t care for them. You don’t give a damn what happens to them, I do. I do and everything that happens to them is my fault because they follow my lead and they think I’m some sort of angel that’s going to lead them into a new future and you - you don’t know what that’s like, you don’t see what I see you can only feel and you can only - ...” she had not noticed the tears that had suddenly come streaming down her cheeks, “I- I...”

”Rey, please.”

He was beside her now, without thinking she laid her head on his shoulder and let him take an ungloved hand and use it to wipe her tears away.

”It’s madness, Ben. It’s madness, and chaos and... I feel...” she closed her eyes, “it’s so lonely.”

”You’re not alone, Rey,” he put an arm around her, pulling her close to him, “you’ve never been alone.”

She breathed in his warmth, his comfort... part of her wanted to rip herself away, continue to cast him out, he had hurt her, he had betrayed her, but...

In the end she had been the one to turn her back on him. She had not taken his hand. She had closed the Falcon door.

So, she only whispered, “please stay, please hold me a while.”

And there they remained, throughout the night, until the dawn of a new day in the wild, wild world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Warmth - Bastille


	2. Just Another Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We are the last people standing  
> At the end of the night  
> We are the greatest pretenders  
> In the cold morning light.”

Far too often before had Rey felt the sting of lonliness. Far too often had she had to make her way through her nightmares by herself. Far too often had she braved these endless nights alone.

It was just another night, but every night had become a battle.

***

How long had Kylo been pacing the dark corridors of the First Order ship? He could not tell. How long had the night lasted? An hour? Many? Days? Time seemed to leave him in times like these. And in every shadow, every dark corner, he saw those ghosts of his past come back to haunt him.

Who was waiting around the next corner, prepared to raise a lightsaber to him?

Where was that dark evil force that had encompassed him all those long years? Where was the hand that struck, the mouth that damned, the trust that shattered? 

He was gripped by fear, pain. Before now, he had felt the power of the darkness, now he only felt its heavy weight.

***

It was cold in the light. Lonely, Rey realized. It held a certain emptiness that she couldn’t shake from her chest, a hollow feeling.

The light was pure, calling to her, but it was also strangely saddening. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she realized that she could never truly belong to it.

And as for the Dark Side, her life held enough rage and she did not care for power.

And so she was left, feeling cast out, staring up at the stars in the night sky.

***

He felt like collpasing. He had had too many of these sleepless nights. So he went back to his room, lying down on his bed. But sleep was too far away, unreachable. He longed for some kind of peace, some kind of calm... but he knew of only one.

***

The demons from inside her were there again, manic voices calling to her from her past. She could see them in the shadows cast by the moon. They lay in the deep cracks and crevices of the walls. They were in the ground upon which she walked, in the air that she breathed and they were infecting her mind.

It’s just another night.

She could make it...

And then a warmth came. An arm around her shoulder, pulling her close.

She listened to his breathing, felt the warmth rise and fall of his chest on her back. She raised her hand to his, holding it. 

“ _Ben_ ,” she whispered.

In her mind, he responded. She listened to the sounds of comfort that came from his thoughts. She listened to the memories of darker nights before. 

She shared her darkness with him as well, the cold in the light, the frightening visions from a past life.

And then they had fallen asleep, slipped into the warmest, softest part of night. Holding on to each other through the force, lightyears apart, but closer than they had ever been before.

When the morning came, they would have disappeared from each other again, but the lonliness of the dawn would be dulled this time. For now, in each others arms, they were home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Get Home - Bastille


	3. All This Bad Blood Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But those are the days that bind us together, forever  
> And those little things define us forever, forever
> 
> All this bad blood here  
> Won’t you let it dry?  
> It’s been cold for years  
> Won’t you let it lie?”

She had been young, driven, confused. Rey: a symbol of hope, the Last Jedi. But for a long time she had been determined that she would not be the last, she had hope for him, for Kylo Ren, for Ben Solo. She had turned away from him, from his visions of glory and power for she had a wanted a new path. A better one, one that was pure and hopeful and light. One for both of them.

_The look in his eyes was so vivid, so enraged. She had seen them and the hope had drained from her heart, sinking into the ground around them. For the first time she could not see Ben Solo in those deep, deep eyes. She could only see the dark, she could only see Kylo Ren._

Now she stood alone, truly, truly alone. Leaderless, the First Order was crumbling before them and soon the Resistance would rise, bringing a new republic to the galaxy, bringing a glimmer of peace to the people who had longed for it for so long, for too long. And now the Resistance looked to her for leadership, for guidance. She was destined to become a peacekeeper for the galaxy, the holder of truth and justice. To train a new generation of Jedi with the little skills she had. 

But how could she? How could she expect to teach others of the light when she could feel the darkness clinging to her still after all those years...

_She remembered the blood at her feet, on her hands. Her mistake clung to her, dripped from her fingers as she held him close, trying to will him back to life._

_The cuts were too deep._

_The blood ran too thick._

_She had defeated him, she had destroyed Kylo Ren. She had reached into his mind and ripped away that cancerous dark, but in the process, she had also delivered the fatal blow to Ben Solo, who was only hanging on by a golden thread of life._

The blood still ran fresh in her mind, how long had it been? Too long.

Too long had she felt that emptiness at the other end of the bond. She had killed him. But the connection was still there, drifting, a painful reminder. 

Sometimes she would hear that echo, the haunting feeling of him being there. She would turn, longing to see him. But instead she saw nothing, felt nothing. Only loss. Only pain. 

_He had reached out to touch her, his hand resting on her face. She was pressing down on his wound, trying to stop the flow of blood. After a while he placed a hand on top of hers, a gesture telling her to stop._

_Their eyes had met, she could see the life slowly leaving them. His breathing became even slower, more strained, each breath another battle._

_She had heard his mind whisper her name as he left and she had screamed._

_She would never feel a darkness colder than this, more terrifying as this as long as she lived. She had killed him, and as he had left he had a taken a part of her too. She felt as if a hole had been ripped into her, an abyss formed in her chest._

_He was dead. And in a way, she had died too._

His voice would still echo in her mind sometimes, the memory of his presence still painful, still burning. 

And now she stood, lightsaber in hand, looking over the cliffs and the mountains behind her, she closed her eyes, wondering if she could carry on, if she could fight this grief, if she could escape her nightmares. 

The force was a strange and powerful thing, but it had created something cruel. Something that was tearing her apart.

She couldn’t forget, she could never forget. The blood ran in her mind as if it were her own. It would never dry. It would never clot or harden, it would continue to run, cold and harrowing until her last day.

She closed her eyes, trying to hide from her ghosts, from her own clenching darkness.

And then she heard it again, the echo of the bond.

Would the torment ever end?

She fell to her knees, burrowing her face in her hands... trying to forget all that she had done when a soft, haunting voice came from behind her:

”Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Bad Blood - Bastille


End file.
